Here is the full transcript of a conversation between Firstpost’s Managing Editor Palki Sharma and renowned US economist Prof. Jeffrey D Sachs at Rising Bharat Summit 2025. Premiered April 8, 2025.
The interview starts here:
The Sachs Doctrine vs Washington Consensus
PALKI SHARMA: Professor Sachs, welcome to Rising Bharat.
JEFFREY D SACHS: Thank you.
PALKI SHARMA: Let’s start with the big idea. What is the Sachs doctrine? Is it a counter to the Washington Consensus? Is it a roadmap that the world should have followed 30 years ago? What is it?
JEFFREY D SACHS: It’s certainly not the Washington Consensus because we don’t need any one capital in this world telling the rest of the world what to do. What I like to follow is the consensus of the world which agreed in 2015 to the idea of sustainable development for all countries, for all peoples, for all parts of the world. And that means that we should be working together in peace, in open trade, with global cooperation, with mutual respect, to abolish poverty, to face the climate crisis, to address the other global challenges and stop the strong arming by any one country or another which puts us into peril. So that’s the global consensus, and I would say that’s the one that I try to follow.
The Fragile Global Consensus
PALKI SHARMA: Are there takers for this among the current lot of policymakers?
JEFFREY D SACHS: Look, the fact of the matter is that in September 2015, all 193 member states of the United Nations adopted the idea of sustainable development as their framework. And six weeks later, all 193 UN member states adopted the Paris Climate Agreement, recognizing that it’s no joke. We really have an environmental emergency, whether we like it or not.
That consensus is very fragile, though, because my country, the United States, doesn’t spend too much time thinking about it. It’s very much America first, whether it’s this administration or the one that preceded it, actually pretty much the same. But what’s happened in recent weeks is absolutely alarming. The United States government in the new administration actually voted against, if you can believe this, it voted against a resolution calling for a day of peaceful coexistence. It said no, and it voted against it for two reasons. One, it says the Chinese used the phrase peaceful coexistence. So we think this phrase may be somehow in praise of China. So we won’t use the phrase peaceful coexistence.
The second was that in the Declaration, it said, the world supports sustainable development. And the United States government said, no, we do not. We will no longer simply say we support sustainable development. It is not in America’s national interest.
So if you ask me, is it a global consensus? Well, we’re down one country. I think 192 would still profess consensus. One does not. And that one is on a bit of an adventure right now every day to prove to the world that it can do what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, how it wants, no matter what anyone else thinks. And that is not exactly conducive to the kind of world that we want.
America’s Foreign Policy Approach
PALKI SHARMA: I think a lot of people may have missed this because they were tracking something else from Washington, D.C. when the U.S. president triggered a global trade war in February. You quoted Henry Kissinger at the European Parliament, and you said, to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Would you offer the same advice to policymakers in India as they try to navigate the Trump tariffs?
JEFFREY D SACHS: That line is actually Henry Kissinger’s famous line that if you’re a friend of the United States, beware. Very dangerous. I have lived a whole lifetime of America declaring its friendship to countries that end up getting destroyed in part because of that wonderful friendship.
I don’t think I have to give advice to India. It’s a little superfluous, but just be careful. You know, there is no alliance there. India is anyway too big for alliances. You are an alliance in and of yourself. Civilizations behave as civilizations do. And so being the most populous country in the world, you take care in your relations everywhere.
But I would say the idea, and I do have to say it, it sounds, I hope I’m not rude or misunderstood, but the US wants to use India. Clearly it wants to use India to beat up China. Don’t play the American game. That’s my only advice to you. It makes no sense. Again, it’s superfluous for me to tell you that, but it is very much on my mind because the entire US foreign policy is divide and conquer in any part of the world. That’s how empires behave. That’s what the US learned from the master empire of all the British. We learned at their knee and we still try to apply it.
So the US loves for India to be in the quad. It wants India to bash China. I heard some Indian politicians recently saying, no, it’s not Donald Trump’s trade policy. It’s all because of China. No, not exactly. It’s actually because of Donald Trump. So just be careful not to play the game. This is really a US game. India’s too big for a US game.
India’s Independent Foreign Policy
PALKI SHARMA: The advice is well taken. Maybe India also wants to beat up China, but on its own terms. And when there was pressure from the West a couple of years back, vis-a-vis Ukraine, India stood its ground. So one is reasonably confident that India will play this on its own terms. But you’ve criticized the US in the past for trying to dictate terms and violate international norms. Previous administrations not so brazenly, the current one, dropping all pretense. Would you say that the Trump tariffs are an extension of the same mindset that you can get away with whatever you want?
The Crisis of American Democracy
JEFFREY D SACHS: I think everyone observing the last few days should be rather puzzled what’s actually going on in Washington.
If you ask me, I will tell you the succinct answer. Nobody knows. And I’ll give you the real answer. That is the most alarming answer of all.
For the first time in American history, we are in a one man show. Right now, we’re in a one person show.The authors of our Constitution spent a lot of time, and they were very brilliant, trying to devise checks and balances to this new system that they were inventing in 1787. They would be horrified by what’s happening now. What is literally happening now. You should understand, how does one person change the whole world trade system? It wasn’t a vote of Congress. It wasn’t even a discussion in Congress. It wasn’t a public debate. It was literally an executive order.
And that is very strange. In the executive order. And you can go to the website of the White House to read the executive order, it says, by the powers invested in me as President of the United States. And then it lists three pieces of legislation with the words emergency in them. The President of the United States declared an emergency.
Now, this is interesting. He claims that he can declare an emergency and then govern without law, just governed by decree. This is what we had a revolution about back in 1776, by the way. They didn’t like the fact that King George III made decrees, but even then it was the British Commons actually passing laws. Here, it’s not even the Commons, it’s one person.
Now, what he calls an emergency is anything that Donald Trump wants to call an emergency. So he calls our trade deficit an emergency? Well, no. It’s been around for 20 some years. It’s got deep economic causes. It’s not exactly an emergency. Maybe it’s a matter of public interest, maybe not. But it’s not something that one person should decide and then overwrite the laws of the land in an emergency decree.
So we are profoundly destabilized in the United States right now because we have one person rule. What we don’t know is whether there will be any reaction to this, whether the courts will be able to enforce a judgment that these actions are illegal, which they plainly are, by the way. They will create worldwide turmoil, but they’re absolutely illegal by any true legal standard other than a presidential emergency.
Or whether Congress will wake up and say, hey, we have a role under Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which says very explicitly that the right to levy duties belongs only to Congress, not to the President, which is in Article 2 of our Constitution. If we had the Indian Supreme Court, I wouldn’t worry. Frankly, the Indian Supreme Court’s pretty activist who would strike this down as enormous presidential overreach. I don’t know about our Supreme Court. The Chief Justice was my classmate 49 years ago, by the way. I didn’t quite trust him then and I don’t trust him now. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but we’re hanging by a thread. Do we have one person rule or do we have really a checks and balances democracy? We don’t know to this moment.
Incidentally, just to mention one other little footnote, they took away my student in the middle of the night two weeks ago, dragged him out of his apartment, literally, as people know, in front of his eight month pregnant wife. No judicial warrant, because our Secretary of State declared that he was a threat to American foreign policy. My second year master’s student.
Is America a Backsliding Democracy?
PALKI SHARMA: If I could come in here, this is the one man that you keep referring to was a man chosen by the Americans. And the joke on social media is that if the US saw what was happening in the US, the US would invade the US to save it from itself. And whatever Trump is doing is not really a surprise. He’s been around, maybe more emboldened this time. But he always said what he was going to do and he’s doing that. And the American voter has put him in the White House. With the incidents that you mentioned, would you say that America today is a backsliding democracy?
JEFFREY D SACHS: We once had a little joke that said, why is the US the only country that never had a coup? And the answer is because it doesn’t have an American embassy. Think about it. Anyway, maybe we’ve had a coup. Now we don’t know. We don’t know how things will actually play out. It’s quite worrisome.
Yes, Americans have voted for Donald Trump, that’s true. But Americans voted for Donald Trump under a constitution and a rule of law not to be ruled by executive decree, which in any event is illegal under our system of government. So we are really in a test right now whether a president can just declare emergency after emergency after emergency, and these have no relevance as emergencies.
This is trade policy, ladies and gentlemen. This isn’t emergencies. This isn’t a hurricane. This isn’t a disaster. This is normal economics, which is why we have a Congress and a constitution. And so, yes, this is absolutely unprecedented and dangerous for everybody, dangerous for the world. And this, unfortunately, is our little bit of our grim situation right now.
India and the Future of Globalization
PALKI SHARMA: Let’s talk about India. You’ve praised India’s economic growth in the past, which has happened, and India thrived thanks to globalization. Do you believe that globalization can survive this protectionist turn that Washington has taken?
India’s Economic Rise and Global Position
JEFFREY D SACHS: First of all, India is doing wonderfully. And it doesn’t surprise me because I’ve watched India in its takeoff, and I’ve been privileged to be coming to India now for 46 years. So I’ve watched a lot of India’s remarkable achievement. I’ll tell you, it’s an old story, but for me, it’s a very vivid story. When I first came to India with my girlfriend, who’s now my wife of 45 years, I carried a book in my backpack by Gunnar Myrdal called the Asian Drama. He was the Nobel Swedish laureate who wrote about Asia. And of course, he was the one that said India could never achieve economic growth, that it was doomed to what was euphemistically called the Hindu growth rate of 2% per year.
Of course, I never believed this, and I never believed that any country is somehow condemned to poverty or doomed to backwardness. It’s the opposite of what real economics shows. We are in an age of convergence right now. We’re in an age where countries are catching up for lost time. India, as you know, was the second or the first largest economy in the world forever, for hundreds and hundreds of years, until, if I could say, the British arrived and did their job for quite a while.
I do have a theory in life that all of today’s challenges at the core, have a British story to them, whether it’s the Middle East or whether it’s some other place, whether it’s China, too, because the British showed up in 1839 to demand the right to export opium to China. The opposite of the fentanyl emergency and so forth.
In any event, India and China fell far behind, and they fell far behind until independence and independence enabled catching up and both started a rapid catching up after the 1980s. China first in 1978, India, I would say in the early 1990s. And now the rate is very robust. And India will become the second largest economy of the world, overtaking the United States in 10 or 15 years. It will become probably the largest economy in the world in the second half of the 21st century. You’re going to have the most people by a wide number, by the way. So this will be the major economy of the world. Advanced high income, high tech. This is what’s happening step by step. And your government’s doing a very good job of promoting it, I would add.
So in this sense, it’s all very positive. And it should help to explain the weirdness going on in the United States, because the US is in a kind of neurotic reaction. The neurosis is that the United States expected to be number one forever. This is the basic point. China ruptured that illusion. So Americans hate China. They hate China. How dare you be a bigger economy than the United States. This violates every rule according to American thinking, and they will come to resent India. I’m sorry to tell you, as you overtake the United States too, just a little bit of friendly caution to you, because the American mindset cannot understand.
This is a big world and other countries are more populous and they’re not being held back. And the United States is only 335 million people, a little bit bigger than Uttar Pradesh, but not so much bigger. And so it can’t be the biggest country — the biggest economy in the world. It’s not even possible in a world where technology is everywhere, where skills are everywhere, where the ability to innovate is everywhere. But this is driving the Americans crazy. And it’s driving the Americans crazy, especially about China. Don’t be pulled into it. I know India and China have their own issues, but settle them. Because between the two of you, you’re 40% of the world population and you could actually help to run a very decent world together.
The Ukraine War and NATO Expansion
PALKI SHARMA: Let’s talk about the war in Ukraine. And we know that the US President is giving the Europeans a hard time and they’ve been sidelined. He’s talking to Putin directly, who is tarrying and not taking a peace deal. Do you think that the current US President is our best bet to end the war? And if Putin does not take his deal, will Trump be inclined to use force?
JEFFREY D SACHS: The war in Ukraine was a terrible debacle that the United States sadly walked into over a 30 year period by expanding NATO despite Russia’s continuing objections. Don’t come closer to our border. Don’t come closer to our border. I know it. I was President Gorbachev’s on his economic advisory team 36 years ago. I was President Yeltsin’s economic adviser. I was Ukraine’s economic adviser to President Kuchma. So I know both sides.
The basic point was Russia wanted some space so that the United States wasn’t pushing its missile systems, its Aegis missiles, its military bases, right up against Russia’s borders. But the United States said, we go where we want, when we want, where we want, how we want. And the war finally ensued.
The war could have ended in 2022. Ukraine and Russia were about to sign a peace agreement based on neutrality for Ukraine, but the United States said, no, no, no, we want military bases, we want NATO there. Don’t sign the agreement. So Ukraine continued to fight. So will Trump end this? He could end this. He just has to say very clearly, publicly, explicitly, NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine. That is over. We will not be next to Russia pushing ourselves into Russia’s front yard, basically.
And if the US does this, there will be peace in Ukraine because the war will end. It’s been a war over NATO enlargement. The war will end on that basis. Unfortunately, President Biden insisted to the last day, NATO will expand to Ukraine. President Trump knows it’s not right, but he hasn’t quite said it yet. So we’re close to the war ending, but we’re not quite there yet.
PALKI SHARMA: From what I understand, the door to a NATO entry is more or less shut for Ukraine. But what you’re saying essentially is you’re holding NATO responsible for the war. You’re saying this is a war they’re making.
JEFFREY D SACHS: Look, I was there when Gorbachev ended unilaterally the Soviet military pact called the Warsaw Pact. He ended it and said peace and the United States should have ended NATO at that moment, but the United States didn’t end NATO. The United States immediately said, we expand NATO.
Actually, not immediately. They told President Gorbachev on February 7, 1990. James Baker III NATO will not move one inch eastward. Not one inch. Hans Dieter Genscher, the Foreign Minister of Germany NATO will not move eastward at all. I was there in those days. They promised, they lied.
When the Soviet Union ended, President Clinton in 1994 began NATO enlargement. And Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book in 1997 explaining Russia will have no choice but to acquiesce. So it was kind of like playing a poker game. They gambled Ukraine’s safety and they lost. And it was a terrible mistake.
And all the senior diplomats in the United States knew it at the time. Jack Matlock, George Kennan. People that I was dealing with knew that this was a disastrous policy. Very dangerous and very provocative. But the politicians went ahead with it anyway because they had the idea that the US was the sole superpower and it could do what it wants.
India’s Role in Global Peace
PALKI SHARMA: You said in the past that Ukraine could become the Afghanistan of Europe. Do you still fear that? And as a country, as a power that engages with both sides, do you see a role for India in future peace talks?
JEFFREY D SACHS: I see a huge role for India in playing a major diplomatic role in the world. If I could tell you a little secret. My advice is be friendly with China and say to China, you must admit us… as you must vote now that we become the sixth permanent member of the UN Security Council. How can we have a Security Council without India being a permanent member? It makes no sense at all. And I want China to be your strong supporter of that. I really do.
I know that India can help to bring peace in the world. This is actually a peace loving country. You just had 600 million people peacefully assemble in the Maha Kumbh Mela. Unbelievable. We can’t have 100 people in my neighborhood get together without a brawl. And if you have a thousand people, someone gets shot. And you just had 600 million people come.
PALKI SHARMA: I think that calls for a big round of applause.
JEFFREY D SACHS: So I want you in the Security Council and I want you to be emphasizing, as you did in the G20, that India is so brilliantly led, that the world is one family. That was the motto of the G20. This is the wonderful philosophy of Hinduism also. It’s the wonderful philosophy of peace. And you will help bring peace to the whole world.
We don’t need these wars. This is the most basic point. We do not need conflict. They make no sense. Wars are the result of politics. You end the war not by war, but by political solutions. You end the war in Ukraine by Ukrainian neutrality and stopping NATO enlargement. You end the war in the Middle East by a state of Palestine as an independent sovereign state living in peace with Israel. It’s obvious. You end the conflicts in East Asia by not having a US military buildup all around the East Asian seaways. This is straightforward. India can help bring that about.
PALKI SHARMA: Right. Fun fact about the UN Security Council. There are five permanent members and the one blocking India’s entry happens to be China. So when you talk about India working with China, and India has put the best foot forward every time, so there are issues to be resolved there.
JEFFREY D SACHS: But I talk to Chinese politicians and diplomats all the time, and I’m always telling them, admit India as the sixth permanent member because it’s good for China and it’s good for India. It’s good for the whole world. And I’m also explaining it’s good for China because we need a multipolar world. We’re way past the United States leading anything, okay? We want them to be there and be cooperative. Don’t make a mess, be nice, play with the others, okay?
To have that kind of world, India needs to be there right front and center. And China wants that. So China’s not just facing American bashing all the time. So to my view, what I say to the Chinese diplomats all the time is, welcome India into the permanency at the Security Council for your own good as well as the good of the world.
Taiwan and US-China Relations
PALKI SHARMA: What can I say? I just hope they listen to your very sound advice. But for the moment, China is looking for trouble, not just to its east, but also elsewhere. We’ve seen the drills around Taiwan. We’ve seen the military moves in the South China Sea. And with Donald Trump taking a tough transactional posture, do you think regions like Taiwan can depend on American security assurances?
JEFFREY D SACHS: If ever there is a place for Henry Kissinger’s adage, it is Taiwan. To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. If Taiwan thinks that the United States is going to save Taiwan from China, oh, my God. Truly, God help us. There is no way, first of all, that the United States could save Taiwan. It would get whopped in a war thousands of miles from its shore anyway. But aside from that, the last thing that this world needs is a war between the United States and China.
My point of view is quite straightforward. Maybe I don’t know if people will take it a little bit harshly or not, but Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan says it’s part of China because the Republic of China based in Taipei says there’s one China. The People’s Republic of China based in Beijing, says there’s one China. They don’t argue about that. They argued about who rules China. That’s a different matter. But they agreed for decades that there’s one China.
And if the United States says to Taiwan, we have your back, you do what you want, believe me, it will be just like what happened to Ukraine when the United States said, you don’t have to be neutral. You can join NATO. We have your back. And that was a million deaths ago. Or at least a million deaths and deadly injuries or very grave injuries.
I love Ukraine. I advised Ukraine for years. But it’s deadly to believe the United States is going to save you and that you can therefore host military bases on Russia’s border. Russia won’t accept it. Just like the United States didn’t accept bases in Cuba of the Russian military. In a million years, they would never accept it. And Donald Trump believes that Canada belongs to the United States and Panama belongs to the United States and Greenland belongs to the United States. He has no inhibition about that. But then he thinks the American military belongs in Taiwan. Shipping military armaments. No, this is a recipe for war. It’s obvious.
PALKI SHARMA: Professor Sachs, we are completely out of time. But one last quick question. 30 seconds. AI is the buzzword now. Countries across the world, leaders across the world are trying to figure out how to negotiate with Trump. Do you think artificial intelligence can negotiate a better deal than Donald Trump?
AI vs. UN Security Council
JEFFREY D SACHS: Honest to God, if you ask ChatGPT or DeepSeek, any question, it’ll give you a better answer than the existing UN Security Council. And one reason is it’ll give you both sides of the argument. It’ll say, some say this and some say that. If you listen to the US there’s only one side ever, because it’s propaganda, it’s narrative. And at least what AI reminds us is if it’s good AI, if it’s Perplexity or ChatGPT or DeepSeek. It’ll give you the arguments on both sides. If we start with the arguments on both sides and actually sit down and talk with each other in this world, we will have a peaceful world.
PALKI SHARMA: I think that’s a fantastic note to end on. Thank you very much, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Thank you.
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